Bitter. Sweet. Tender. Love. This subjective idea may refer to a concept, a feeling, an attitude, an emotion, one could have towards another. Throughout history, one’s perception on love may vary due to the ideology they were being indoctrinated with as well as their family background. Given that different historical periods may affect one’s perception on their idea of love, an analysis on the poems “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, and “Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe, will be made in order to examine and explore how poets living in different times present love in their own unique approach.
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is a ballad written by English poet John Keats in the year 1819, where
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When the knight and the woman was having a sexual intercourse, “She looked at him as she did love, / And made sweet moan” The declarative, “she looked at him as she did love“expresses the idea of unrequited love. The woman may have only decided upon having a sexual intercourse with him to favour his sexual desires, yet it does not represent that she has an affection for him. On the other hand an iambic tetrameter is also used in the same quotation as a motif of the knight’s heartbeat, this represents the excitement and passionate emotions he has within the relationship and sexual intercourse. A sense of negativity can be seen in the line “And made sweet moan”, the iambic dimeter in this line has a foreboding effect to it, hinting that love between the woman and the knight will not last long. Likewise to “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, Keats’ short poem “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!” also signifies his role in the Romanticism movement by the reinforcement of his individual expression and obsessive nature towards his lover Fanny Brawne. This is evident when Keats display the sincere and direct emotions of himself in the title “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!” The dependent clause, ‘“and all its sweets are gone”’ is a metaphor that the sweetness of their relationship has disappeared due to the distance between Keats and Brawne. This metaphor can be likened to “La Belle Dame sans Merci” through the knight’s loneliness and sentimental emotions when he waits for the woman he loves. The intensifier “all” reinforces Keats’ desires to see Brawne, not seeing her for a day does not only signify the loss of sweetness, but also marking the end of his day. He is eager to see Brawne, and by not seeing her the sweetness of his day, the significance of his day has vanished, disappeared. This poem can
Many of these poems describe romantic relationships and the relationship’s effect on the speakers’ behaviors. Whether the speaker feels lovesick, obsessive, or excited, the behavior of the speaker is different than it was when he/she was not in love. These love poems from Deir el-Medina depict the effects of a romantic relationship on the behavior of the people involved.
In 1786, Helen Maria Williams published a two-volume poetry collection. The collection was titled Poems and A Song is featured there in that area. A Song has six sections. Each section consists of one stanza that has four lines and an ABAB rhyme scheme and the metre is similar to that of an iambic trimeter. Moreover, there is a great use of punctuation. The poem’s central theme is love and how a particular emotional relationship affects the lyrical voice.
The similarities between the poems lie in their abilities to utilize imagery as a means to enhance the concept of the fleeting nature that life ultimately has and to also help further elaborate the speaker’s opinion towards their own situation. In Keats’ poem, dark and imaginative images are used to help match with the speaker’s belief that both love and death arise from fate itself. Here, Keats describes the beauty and mystery of love with images of “shadows” and “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance” to illustrate his belief that love comes from fate, and that he is sad to miss out on such an opportunity when it comes time for his own death.
From the first few lines Keats alludes to the great romances of the previous ages as opposed to William Shakespeare's great tragedies. While it could be discerned that Keats is referring to his poem
This essay will be going through the different types of love, and the power that they wield. Throughout the novel, different characters hold different powers of love. First, Clara’s love towards Ferula and Pedro Segundo will be discussed. And second, Esteban’s obsessiveness with Clara will be looked at closer. The bonds of love are stronger in relationships that aren’t acceptable compared to relationships that are acceptable in society.
In her poem "Lanval," Marie de France shares a fantasy with her readers, telling the tale of a mysterious woman who journeys from a distant land to be with Lanval, a dishonored knight of King Arthur's Round Table. Marie's portrayal sets Lanval's mistress apart from the maidens and ladies in waiting at King Arthur's court, as she eclipses even Queen Guenever. Much like an editor of a modern woman's fashion magazine, Marie targets her audience of mostly aristocratic twelfth-century women. She describes a mysterious lady whose retinue, meadow pavilion, clothing, figure, cultured sentiments, deportment, and conduct depict her as a superior being. Lanval's mistress is a model Marie's readers
Furthermore, what would love be if one could not gather any satisfaction from this event? In The Lais of Marie de France the happiness of love is a very significant factor, it is the determination that drives the passionate relationships that flourish within the lais. In the story of “Laustic”, the lovers are never in physical acquaintance but seem to gaze at each other every night
Love can be quite a difficult topic to write about, expressing one’s intimate and innermost emotions requires a great level of dedication and honesty. If done correctly, the outcome is truly stunning. John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and Katherine Philips’s “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” are two masterpieces of this genre. These poems depict the concept of true love so meticulously that the reader cannot help but envy the relationships presented. Perhaps the reason that these works are so effective is due to the fact that they are incredibly similar to each other. Although some differences are present when it comes to structure and gender concerns, the poems share the same theme of love on a spiritual level and show many parallels in meaning.
Love is perhaps one of the most contested issues in the world. No one has a precise definition of what love really should look or feel like. Most people have resorted to use their own experiences in love to effectively derive its true meaning. Through these experiences, philosophers have argued that the definition of love varies greatly depending on whether it was given by a man or a woman. This is however not the case. As proven by the narratives of Beauvoir and Sartre, the definitions of love derived from the experiences of both men and women are quite similar. Consequentially, Beauvoir’s account of the woman in love sheds important light on Sartre’s conflicting thought about love. By first highlighting the concepts of love as stated by Beauvoir, this text seeks to establish how Beauvoir’s account of love lays a vital foundation for Sartre’s.
Different Attitudes To Love In La Belle Dame Sans Merci And I Wanna Be Yours
Love is expressed differently by all, some like Salamono may tuck it away, only to release it when the lover has left forever. Others , like Marie, choose to boast it to the world without hesitation. This quality is her confidence is herself shining through. She never fails to attest to what she wants “Then she said she wondered if she
The poem, ‘The Ecstasy” is one of the more well-known works written by John Donne. In the poem, Donne seems to agree with the philosophy that true love can only be available on a spiritual level and explains what the process is to get there. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how the poem expresses the unique ideas of love and how two people make connections through different pathways, aside from just the physical bonds.
Love makes people become selfish, but it is also makes the world greater. In this poem, the world that the speaker lives and loves is not limited in “my North, my South, my East and West / my working week and my Sunday rest” (9-10), it spreads to “My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song (11). The poem’s imagery dominates most of the third stanza giving readers an image of a peaceful world in which everything is in order. However, the last sentence of the stanza is the decisive element. This element not only destroys the inner world of the speaker, but it also sends out the message that love or life is mortal.
Generally, authors compose books that go along with the morals of the audience. So many stories are written today with the typical love story, girl falls in love with guy or vice versa. Others are action packed with a climax and a predictable ending. Victor Hugo took a different stance while writing his book Les Miserables. Hugo's idea of action is presented through Jean Valjean who is held in prison for four years because he stole a loaf of bread. He includes unique love stories unlike the typical ones that we read about. Hugo's main purpose is to challenge people to consider their morals on forgiveness and love.
The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens